Jeremy Strong says he hopes Facebook founder will view his new film as a dialogue

Actor Jeremy Strong told The New Yorker Radio Hour that he contacted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg during the production of the upcoming drama "The Social Reckoning" because he wants the film to serve as a dialectic on issues such as truth decay and civil discourse, rather than a polemic that places all blame on Facebook. Strong said he often defended Zuckerberg while discussing the project with writer-director Aaron Sorkin, adding that his aim was to present a balanced view.

"I think my hope is that the film is a dialectic rather than a polemic, rather than there’s a kind of trend generally of like, it’s all Facebook’s fault, like all of it, everything," Strong said.

The film, set to debut on Oct. 9, dramatizes the 2021 leak of internal Facebook documents by whistleblower Frances Haugen. Strong also discussed his method-acting approach, recalling a request to be sprayed with tear gas for a scene in the earlier Sorkin-directed film "The Trial of the Chicago 7," which he said was intended to capture the physiological impact of the historical protests without endangering anyone.

"I want to demythologize that a little bit... I want to be very clear, involved no one else and would have involved no one else," he explained.

The cast of "The Social Reckoning" includes Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, Bill Burr, Wunmi Mosaku, Billy Magnussen and Betty Gilpin.